


From This Day On

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: Half Life Trilogy - Sally Green
Genre: Canon Compliant, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Lies, Mentions of Rape, Missing Scene, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unwanted Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 07:30:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5239823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A conversation that must have happened, at one point, between Cora and her mother, regarding her last unexpected pregnancy</p>
            </blockquote>





	From This Day On

It’s a frequent enough discussion these days and Cora is so tired of it. She keeps sewing clothes: Arran is growing up so fast. All her children are. Jessica runs through her jeans and trousers at the knees constantly, and Deborah keeps growing off her shirts.

She wonders about the baby inside her as she pulls the needle of the shirt she’s mending; how fast will they grow, how happy, how safe.

“I’m not going to say that I was raped, mother.“

“It might save you,“ Elsie says, frowning. “You know that.“

“And then, what? The baby will grow up thinking that their father raped me, that I hate them? Then, what when they ask me why I didn’t have an abortion? A potion would have taken care of that, easily. And what will happen when the Council decides that, since I didn’t want this baby, they’ll take them? No, thank you.“

“It might just give us enough time to do something, to try and make it so that we’re the only ones in the room when you give birth“ her mother insists. “And they’re not going to take my grandchild, that’s just nonsense.“

“They just might when they see it’s not Dean’s.“

“We don’t know that.“

“Mother, I hadn’t slept with Dean in almost a year,“ Cora says, sighing. They’ve been having this discussion since she found out she was pregnant. 

“And no-one needs to know that. He was your husband and as far as anyone knows you were happy and in love“ Elsie insists again, her frown fierce and terrible. At least she’s not talking about her lying about how this baby was conceived again. “And even then, we can hide it. We will hide it.“

She smiles, not amused, not happy, simply because all this sounds so, so ridiculous. “Hide a baby that looks like Marcus?“

“We don’t know that they will look like him,“ her mother says, taking the shirt away from her and folding it in two quick movements. “And even then, there are potions. If the baby looks too much like… not like you, there are potions we can use to make them look like you.“

Cora looks at her mother, a hand covering her belly. The baby has started to kick lately and sometimes touching her belly, as if she was touching them, settles the baby again. As if her hand could keep them safe and happy.

"And then? We’ll just keep giving the baby potions for all their life?”

“Babies can be sick, and we can say it’s medicine.” Elsie says.

“Let’s assume that it works, how will we hide that they’l be half Black?“ Cora shakes her head, squishing the small hope that for aone moment she allowed herself to feel. “There’s no potion able to hide that.“

“They’ll also be half White,” her mother tells her. “The Gifts in our family line are usually strong. Maybe the white in him will be strong enough that it’ll hide the Black.”

“And what if it doesn’t? The Black in _his_ family line is just as strong.”

For a moment, her mother looks as exhausted as Cora has been feeling the past few months, before sheer determination shines through. “Then the potion will buy us at least seventeen years before we absolutely have to do something.”

And for just one moment, Cora allows herself to believe that things might be alright.


End file.
